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November 11th<\/sup> 2020<\/i><\/p>\n Like most folk, I spent the past few weeks wondering a) If Trump was going to stage a coup, and b) if his followers were going to rise up and wage war against the United States in the name of Amurka. Yes, a lot of those clowns love America and hate the United States. It takes a special kind of stupid to be a Trumpkin.<\/p>\n We\u2019re a full week after the polls closed (yeah, seems longer, I know) and four days since the election was called for Biden. Trump has responded about the way everyone expected (memorably likened by one commentator to a toddler who has just been informed it\u2019s time to leave Chuck E. Cheese) with tantrums on twitter and otherwise holing up in the s<\/i>chlupfloch <\/i>formerly known as the White House.<\/p>\n His lawyers filed a veritable snowstorm of suits, most of which amounted to little more than despairing wails. At last count, he was 0-14 in court, with the closest thing to a victory being one judge who agreed GOP observers could stand six feet from the tabulators instead of the agreed-upon 10 feet. Didn\u2019t change the results any.<\/p>\n The closest thing to a viable suit was one in which a postal worker alleged widespread vote tampering in making postmarks match before the election date. It collapsed when the same worker, in a sworn affidavit, admitted he made the whole thing up. Since his initial allegation was ALSO a sworn affidavit, he is prima facie<\/i> in jeopardy of a charge of perjury, and he can probably kiss his PO job goodbye. And if someone in the Trump organization offered him money for the false testimony, he can probably kiss that goodbye, as well. Maybe they\u2019ll let him keep the MAGA hat.<\/p>\n A large majority of people have decided that Trump\u2019s protests are without merit and he should concede and gracefully allow President-Elect Biden to proceed with the transition. That\u2019s eighty percent of voters, including 55% of Republicans. As the courts reject suit after suit, and state after state formally certifies their results, that number will change in Joe Biden\u2019s favor. By December 9th<\/sup>, the day after \u201csafe harbor\u201d reporting of final results, that same poll is likely to show 95% support for Biden, with 85% of Republicans agreeing. There\u2019s only three states where Trump qualifies for an automatic recount, and he doesn\u2019t have any realistic hope of winning any of them. An error rate of 0.1% would be considered extraordinarily high, and the narrowest difference he\u2019s contesting is 0.5%.<\/p>\n Most of his antics are delaying tactics and red meat for his base, a base that is steadily shrinking as it becomes clear just how hypocritical and self-serving Trump\u2019s arguments have become. Even Fox News has given up on Trump and are now urging him to just concede already and let the nation move forward. That leaves only the lunatics who faithfully follow OANN, Breitbart, Newsmax, Qanon, and the right wing cesspool known as Parler. That social media site looks like a kindergarten on psilocybin. I might just create a fake account and go over there and commit acts of Polemical Judo. Nothing drives right wingers into a bigger frenzy than a calm, reasoned recitation of provable, salient facts, and a suggestion that perhaps a friendly wager on some of them might be in order. Just drives them nuts. You\u2019ll learn things about your manners, morals, ancestry and post-life destination that you would never have guessed in a million years.<\/p>\n There isn\u2019t going to be a widespread, or even significant uprising on Trump\u2019s behalf. Even amongst the most resolute of Trumpkins, there is unease that stems from the fact that Trump flat-out said he would attack the integrity of the election process if he lost, praise it if he won. Coupled with court loss after loss after loss, and growing public anger, his support is eroding. There\u2019s an old saying, \u201cIf you can\u2019t decide if the whole world is right or you are, it\u2019s likely the world is right.\u201d When Trumpkins are reduced to considering the entire United States to be just a conspiracy to suppress Donald Trump, there won\u2019t be many of them left, because crazy can only take a movement so far.<\/p>\n The Trump movement will die a well-deserved death. Well, OK, cults never die entirely, and there will always be a few True Believers, but there will never be enough of them to matter. For the vast majority of people, Trump will find his historical level: a bad joke that nearly destroyed a country.<\/p>\n The militant right, which piggybanked on Trump as a way to advance their aims, are another matter. They are, for the most part, neo-Nazis and other vile extremists who don\u2019t mind using terror and violence to get their way. They are, and will remain, a danger. My best guess is some McVeigh amongst them will commit an atrocity that will finally persuade the American public that they are a bigger problem than Islamic extremism (and in fact they already are) and far far worse than the imaginary threats posed by Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Under Biden, I expect intelligence agencies will be allowed to resume infiltrating and monitoring these outfits, and preventing another OKC.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s going to do a fair bit of damage between now and January 2021. He\u2019s trying to steal everything he can and move as many levers as possible to soften his landing, although I doubt any decent person is in any mood to let him just walk away from his crimes. He\u2019s panicked and anxious, and well he should be.<\/p>\n But don\u2019t worry about the crap he\u2019s pulling with the military. His appointments are all civilian, not in the chain of command, and the military has already made it clear it isn\u2019t going to go to war with America in the name of Donald Trump.<\/p>\n So hang tight. We\u2019ll get through this.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" November 11th 2020 Like most folk, I spent the past few weeks wondering a) If Trump was going to stage a coup, and b) if his followers were going to rise up and wage war against the United States in the name of Amurka. Yes, a lot of those clowns love America and hate the … <\/p>\n